PLACE Program (Policies for Livable, Active Communities and Environments)

The PLACE Program is dedicated to fostering policy
change that supports the development of healthy, safe
and active environments for all Los Angeles County
residents.

PLACE News

Let’s Walk Together! A
Walking School Bus Training ManualThe PLACE Program recently
developed “Let’s Walk Together!” as a resource for
parents, teachers, and volunteer coordinators that are
interested in starting a Walking School Bus program at
their local school. A Walking School Bus is one of many
safe routes to school encouragement programs that
encourages students to walk together to/from school
under adult supervision. Check out
PLACE’s
Built Environment Resources page to learn more and
download the manual..

The
Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles:The Plan for a Healthy Los
Angeles: A City Dreams Big, Aiming to Make Health Goals
and Metrics a Part of its General Plan.
The Plan for a
Healthy Los Angeles lays out a practical vision for
creating a more vibrant, healthy, and sustainable city.
The Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles serves as an
overarching policy document for health — a platform to
help launch broad, citywide initiatives that address
health and equity.

City of Los Angeles Releases Health Atlas
The City of Los Angeles is developing a Health and Wellness Chapter for its General Plan, which
will help elevate health as a priority for future
planning and development in Los Angeles. The Health Atlas is a tool
that comprehensively examines health issues in Los Angeles and illustrates the role that neighborhoods play in the health of Angelenos. The Health
Atlas analyzes over 100 health outcomes, such as childhood obesity, pollution, and crime, and how they are geographically concentrated in the city.
The Atlas shows that life expectancy in Los Angeles’ neighborhoods can vary by up to 12 years, highlighting the opportunity to address health inequities
through better land use and community design. Funded by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and The California Endowment, this multi-sector
initiative provides the first update to the General Plan Framework in over 20 years, and includes the development of complementary programs to address
issues identified in the Health Atlas.

In addition to the Health Atlas, the City has also created an interactive website at Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles , where the Atlas’ data is
available through engaging maps and neighborhood profiles. It offers neighborhood profiles and interactive maps that display many of the characteristics of the built and
social environments that affect health outcomes, such as economic conditions, education, land use, transportation, and crime statistics.

Brief on Transportation Finance in LA County
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership (SRTSNP) developed this brief on transportation finance to identify potential strategies for increasing
funding for active transportation, such as biking and walking, in Los Angeles County. SRTSNP researched the funding sources that pay for transportation projects
in Los Angeles - from local proposition funding, to state gas tax funds to federal transportation allocations. The brief ends with recommendations for Los Angeles
County’s transportation commission (Metro) and local cities on how to build more bicycle and pedestrian improvements on our streets. (Transportation Finance in Los Angeles County Report
)

LA County Department of Public
Health Awards Healthy Eating Active Living Grants
In July 2012, The Los Angeles County Department of
Public Health issued a Healthy Eating Active Living
(HEAL) Request for Proposals (RFP) to develop and
implement one or more strategies that will create an
environment where it is convenient, safe and easy for
community members to eat healthfully and participate in
physical activity every day. The HEAL grantees will pursue a
variety of strategies including, but not limited to,
active transportation plans; increasing access to
healthy foods; and safe routes to school plans. Grantees will receive up
to $125,000 per year for approximately three years.

Estimating Cost to Build
Pedestrian and Bicycle Infrastructure in the SCAG Region
The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG)
is currently updating its Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).
The RTP is a long-range (25-year) transportation plan
for the Southern California and it has the potential to reduce air pollution,
increase the walkability and bikeability
of cities in the region, and expand the public transit
system.

To support SCAG’s efforts in making difficult resource
allocation decisions, the Los Angeles County Department
of Public Health estimated the cost of
creating pedestrian and bicycle improvements throughout
the SCAG region. The accompanying document
provides the calculations and assumptions used
in our draft analysis. There are three components to the
analysis: bicycle costs; pedestrian costs; and
bicycle and pedestrian costs in Transit Oriented
Districts (TODs). We estimate a range from $37 billion
to $59 billion over the 25-year period..